1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a computer program, which, when browsable content is detected for each user, sends notice via e-mail to the user who is capable of browsing the updated content.
Further, the present invention also relates to an apparatus and a computer program, which determines whether the transmission of e-mail to an e-mail address assigned to a user having authorization (authorization by which the user can browse the above-described content, for example) is undeliverable or not, and change the authorization.
2. Prior Art
The Internet has conventionally been used for sales activity. For example, e-mail is used for inquiries from customers and for responses thereto. A WEB server is used to provide information to the customers, such as merchandise information, price information, information of order reception and shipping status of merchandise, and the like. Further, inquiries from the customers have also been processed by a template provided by the WEB server.
In recent years, particularly, a system has been used which provides information only to particular customers according to business records of the customers. In such a system, specific content is provided to specific customers. For example, when a customer accesses to the system, specific content for the specific customer is displayed.
With such a system, only information that the customer needs is provided to him/her, and the customer can quickly access the information that he/she needs. Further, those who provide information to the customers can provide different information for each customer, and can quote different prices for a same product to different customers according to business records, credit rating and the like, for example.
As described, to present the information unique to the customer, authentication is performed by identification codes, passwords or the like, and thus particular details have been presented for a particular customer.
Specifically, when a person from a customer company who accesses to the WEB server of a sales company or the like, a screen for entering an ID and the password is displayed. When a correct identification code and password are entered, the particular information for the person in charge of the company is provided.
However, in such a system that provides specific information to specific customers, the system does not have means to inform the customers of updated content. If there is an update, the sales company has to wait for the customers to access the content after the content is updated, and there is a problem that the system cannot timely provide information for the customers.
Furthermore, in the above-described system, it is necessary to control disclosure of the content, which is to be disclosed only to the particular customer, in order to prevent it from being disclosed to other customers while updated information is timely informed to the customer. For example, it has frequently occurred that the person in charge of a company moves to other company without prior contact due to the changes of employment situation in recent years. For this reason, if the person remembers the identification code and the password, he/she can browse the information that should be presented only to the first company, for which he/she has worked, after having moved to the other company. Thus, there is another problem that the information that should be presented only to a particular company is leaked out to those who are employed by another company.